Regina Seconds It
by JMolover13
Summary: Regina thinks that Emma is Daniel's reincarnation, but it turns out, Ruby is. Who will Regina pick?


**Anonymous asked you: Regina believes Emma is Daniel's reincarciation and they start to out Red/Ruby really is and when Red/ruby finally remembers Regina is already in love with Emma but Red/Ruby tells Regina the truth. And now Regina must decide. Daniel's reincarcination or her new love, Emma**

**AN: I really liked this prompt. I hope I did it justice. And I hope you enjoy, Anon.**

**P.S. The medical stuff is not accurate… at all that I know of (usually I try to do some research, but back at the beginning of January when I wrote this, I'd just finished Grey's for the second time and thought I could just write something and it make sense). Now, it does make sense in my tiny, tiny brain, so I hope we're all okay with it!**

"You really, honestly think that I'm some dead dude reincarnated? That I'm your true love?" Emma asked.

"I know that it's impossible in the world you grew up in Emma and that's my fault, but I think there is a possibility, yes." Regina walked a few feet from the blonde and the corner of the balcony to the center of its edge. She looked out over the green grass and listened to the music coming from below at the party.

Emma stared at the woman's back. They'd been dancing on the edge of a relationship for a while and Regina wanted her to know why she had let herself fall so freely. "Why do you think I'm his reincarnation?"

"For as long as our realm's history has stated, each person can only fall in true love with one spirit. One soul. They are soul mates in every sense of the word. I know that I was in true love with Daniel…" She turned to look at the blonde, "And I…" She trailed off, unable to finish her sentence.

Emma slowly walked over to the woman, "I love you, too." She whispered. "You are the only person that's ever made me feel whole."

Regina covered her mouth and turned away nodding, tears filling her eyes.

"Regina. Regina, hey." She took the brunette's hand from her mouth and took her face with the other, "This is a happy moment."

"I know, I just…" She shook her head and looked into those green orbs.

"I love you." Emma nodded, "I love you so much, and I wish I could remember what we had because if it's anything like I'm feeling now… My God…"

Regina leaned up and kissed the woman. She knew she wasn't going to get through anything she could try to say.

~0~0~0~0~0~

Ruby was standing outside the party. She hadn't been feeling well the whole time, but something was compelling her to stay. She looked up and saw the mayor and Emma. She'd always been insanely jealous of the blonde for getting the mayor, but she never really understood why. The mayor and herself were not exactly running in the same social circles.

She watched as Regina leaned in and kissed the blonde. In that moment, everything pushed through her. Her heart felt as if thousands of shards of glass were piercing through it. She couldn't even call for help. She only fell to the ground and looked up at the full moon with one question on her mind.

_Why?_

~0~0~0~0~0~

The two women pulled apart and looked at each other with smiles on their faces, but movement caught Emma's eye and she squinted down to the lawn.

Regina turned around as well, "Is that Ruby?"

"It looks like… I can't tell if she's passed out drunk or not…" It was in this moment that they saw the figure start to convulse, "Oh my God! Go get my bug!" She gave the woman the keys to her car and quickly decided that her best route down to the Ruby was scaling the balcony and jumping onto a tree's limb. She looked back up after landing to find Regina staring at her, "Go! Flash here or flash the car here or flash us to the hospital or… Something!" She yelled.

She got to the waitress and held her head still as the seizure ran through her.

"Jesus, Rubes… What the hell is happening to you?"

~0~0~0~0~0~

Dr. Whale, Emma and Regina all stood outside Ruby's room.

"So, she's got epilepsy?" Regina asked. "I've never seen her seize before…"

"I think it's actually an underlying heart condition."

Emma knit her brows, "But you just said that it was for sure a seizure…"

"That was caused due to lack of blood flow to the brain, which came from a heart attack—"

"A heart attack! Oh my God!" Regina put her hand to her chest and looked to the waitress, "She's so young!"

"And the girl is freaking fit! Everyone can plainly see that if they walk into the diner! How could she have a heart condition and know nothing about it?" Emma asked, needing to know so that it could be justified.

Regina, still looking at the waitress, grabbed Emma's arm, "She's waking up… I'm going to go in there, alright?"

"Yeah, I'll try to get everything straightened out." Emma nodded and turned back to Dr. Whale.

Regina gave a sweet, sad smile as she walked into the room, "Hi, hello." She whispered as she made her way to the bed and sat in the provided chair.

"Mmm… What happened?" Ruby asked as she looked around at everything, noticing she was in a hospital room, in a hospital gown.

"Well, you had a heart attack… and a seizure."

"Lucky me." Ruby smiled weakly. She reached her hand out and touched Regina's cheek, caressing it with her thumb, "I've missed you."

Regina knit her brows and stared at the waitress, "Excuse me?"

The woman's look of confusion made Ruby think about what exactly was happening. She knew she was in Storybrooke, that she was in the hospital, but she kept seeing herself with Regina. Holding her, doting on her. She didn't know—"Oh! Oh my…" She retracted her hand and turned away as all four lives she's lived tried to work themselves out.

Regina knit her brows, "What? What is it, Ruby?"

"It's just…" She stared into the eyes she knew she loved from the moment she saw them, "I just… It's not a conversation for here. Maybe we can talk sometime when I get out?"

"Alright." Regina's tone was hesitant, "I know I don't have a good track record, but you really can tell me anything…"

"I know. And I will. But not here." She assured the brown eyes that were watching her intently.

~0~0~0~0~0~

Henry answered the door, "Hey… Ruby?" He was expecting his blonde mother. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, is uh, is your mom home?"

"Yeah, MOM!" He yelled.

"Henry don't shout!" Regina scolded as she walked into the foyer, "Hello, Ruby."

"Hey…" She shuffled her feet and stared at her.

"Are you wanting to talk?" Regina tried to help her out. Ruby was thankful for that and nodded. "Henry?"

"Yeah?"

"When Emma gets here, you two go along without me, alright?"

"Okay." He nodded.

Regina gestured for the other woman to follow her, and follow her Ruby did. They sat on the couch at opposite ends. There was a full ten minutes of silence. Ruby not knowing how to start, and Regina trying to be patient.

Ruby took a breath, "You've ripped out a lot of hearts in your time…"

The witch looked down and back up, "Yes."

"Do you know what it feels like?" She asked, "I mean, I know you've done it, but do you know what it feels like?"

"Like my mother, I took my own heart out for safe keeping." Regina nodded.

"But you don't know what it's like to die from it… And you've never been eaten to death either, so I assume you don't know what that's like. Do you know what it's like to have multiple memories of multiple selves? I know that here we call it Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder, but it's not that. I'm not being taken over by a certain self. I just… remember. I know each soul inside me. Do you know what that's like?"

Regina shook her head, "I'm afraid I don't…"

"Being a wolf is the worst curse. If you have a romantic connection with someone and they die there is a high possibility that their spirit might come join you. I have two of them." Ruby looked down, "And then I have Ruby and Red… I have four lives in me and I don't know how to keep them separate."

Regina tilted her head, "Why do you need to?"

"Because one of them…" She looked up, "One of them is in a lot of pain because they are seeing their true love, love another."

Regina knit her brows. The laws clearly stated that, "That's not possible." She said the last of her thought aloud.

"Apparently it is and it brings on heart attacks and seizures." Ruby stared at her, and took a breath deciding to start trying to tell her why she was there, "Okay, so I have Red and Ruby. Those two are my real selves. I can easily mix them however I please. Then I have my true love, Peter, who I ate before I knew I was a wolf and thought it was him. I have all the pain he… I went through before I died and wound up in me. But that's kind of perfect because I'm with my true love forever now." She looked down, "But before Peter, I had a thing with another man. We knew it wasn't love and it was complete and utter infatuation, but we still…" She gestured but not crudely.

"Had relations?"

"Yeah, and that forever tied us." She paused a moment, "This is going to sound weird, but it's coming from his part of me, okay?"

Regina crossed her legs with intrigue and stared at the other woman, "Okay…?"

"Cora ripped out my heart. We were going to run away together and get married, but she ripped it out in front of you and crushed it to dust. You are my true love. We were supposed to grow old together and have all kinds of babies and run a horse farm because no one would be able to groom better horses than the two of us. You were supposed to be my wife and I was supposed to be your husband and we were supposed to get the chance to grow old… But she killed me and I went away for a while." Ruby took a breath, "And now that I'm back, you're in love with someone else. You've literally done the impossible, and I know this because I can see it in your eyes you really, really love her… and you really, really loved me."

Regina stared at her with a dropped jaw, "Daniel?"

Ruby pushed herself to a kneeling position on Regina's end of the couch. She put her hands on Regina's waist while Regina put hers on Ruby's cheeks. They both leaned in and closed the distance.

"Oh, Daniel." Regina said between kisses, "I've missed you so much."

"I missed you, too." Ruby smiled with tears in her eyes.

They held onto each other the rest of the day, Regina's mind running rampant. She knew she was doing something wrong, but she was with Daniel… But she thought Daniel was somewhere in Emma. And if he wasn't then Emma was her match all on her own. But then there was Daniel in Ruby and Ruby was feeling all of his pain and experiencing all of the side effects of that pain. She couldn't do that to her; to be quite honest, she never did live a day without Daniel on her heart and she couldn't live a day with knowing that he was inside Ruby. But she couldn't live a day without Emma either; Emma was her opposite in every sense of the word. She was goofy and unreserved and everything Regina wished she could be sometimes. She was so passionately in love with her; she knew losing her wasn't an option. And then her mind would venture back to Daniel.

She flicked her wrist and a fire lit in the study fireplace. Then she snapped her fingers and she and Ruby were cuddled under a quilt in front of the fire. Regina watched the flames and snuggled into the person behind her.

"I didn't tell you this to hurt you, Regina." Ruby said as she curled the mayor's hair behind her ear and ran her fingers down her long neck.

"I know."

"I don't want you to hurt."

Regina turned and looked into Ruby's eyes, "I don't want you to hurt either." She leaned up and kissed her.

"Uh, what the fucking hell?" Emma's voice pierced through the passion gathering between Ruby and Regina. "I thought that bitch came over to talk." When Regina and Ruby both said nothing, Emma started for the study door.

"No! Emma! Wait!" Regina threw her arm out, magically shutting and bolting the door. Then she did it to each of the other doors and windows, "Please listen to me."

"No! Let me out or I'm going to start breaking stuff. Starting with Bitch's face." She gestured to Ruby.

Regina walked over to Emma and placed timid, gentle, determined hands on her arms, "Emma please let me explain."

"Explain what?!"

"I'm Daniel." Ruby's voice broke the angry stare that Emma was giving Regina.

"No…." Emma stared at the woman like she had seven heads and like she wanted to commit murder, "Regina said I was… She said I was because she was in love with me and a person from our world can only ever fall in love once and it be true love… And it _is_ true love!"

Regina gently took the blonde's face in her hands, "I was wrong…" She choked out, tears in her eyes, "Because… Ruby is Daniel. She remembers. She remembers everything."

"You remember all the stuff I've been trying to?" Emma looked over to Ruby.

"I do. Every last detail."

"So… does this mean that I'm not your true love?" Emma asked completely heartbroken, unembarrassed tears making trails down her cheeks.

"I don't know what it means, Emma. This sort of thing… it isn't a possibility."

"But it is. It is in this world, it's happening to you now." Emma said. She inhaled raggedly and looked from Ruby to Regina, "Do you love her?"

"I do."

"Do you love me?"

"I do."

Emma closed her eyes tight trying to stop the tears freely falling down her face, "Well, there's only one thing I can do if I love you, too." She sucked in a breath of air and held it as she opened her eyes, "I have to let you go…" She turned to the door, "Please… just unlock it so I can make my exit at least a little dignified and graceful."

~0~0~0~0~0~

Emma spent the next three months on her parent's couch. They didn't make her get up except for a shower and a change of clothes at least once a week. Her father took the station over for her and her mother pandered to her every whim. Henry would come over and try to talk to her, but she couldn't muster the strength to keep an entire conversation.

She had just changed sides of the couch, laying with her head to the door, when her mother came down, "Okay." The schoolteacher kissed her hair, "I'm going to school to build young Storybrooker's minds. I'll be home just after three like usual. I put a sandwich out for you on the counter and I want it in your stomach when I get back, not the trashcan, okay?"

Emma nodded and pulled her quilt tighter around her.

"Don't make me send your father here for lunch…"

The blonde shook her head, "I won't." She promised, "I'll eat it."

"Okay." Snow kissed Emma's hair again before going to the door.

A few hours later, the cushion Emma had laid her head on was wet as they usually got when she was alone. She wasn't a loud crier, she was actually so quiet it tended to disturb her parents. They feared for her health, forcing fluids and food. She would for sure have been at the hospital if she were on her own; she wasn't doing anything unless they forced her.

The only thing she was adamant about was the picture she put on the coffee table. If either Snow or Charming tried to move it, she would come at them like a honey badger. It was a picture of her and Regina. Regina was grinning at the camera and Emma was kissing her cheek. She loved that picture.

She hadn't bothered wiping her eyes and nose since this bout of tears started, so when the knock on the door came, it took her a moment to respond, "Momma?" She looked around for her mother, "Mom?" When she remembered that her mother was at school she looked at the door and willed the person away. But a knock came again. She sniffled and wiped her mouth and nose and eyes with her quilt. She sat up slowly, hoping she wouldn't actually have to get up, but instead of footfalls retreating she heard another knock. She wrapped the quilt around herself and walked the few feet from the door. She was not expecting this person on the other side.

Ruby looked at Emma with a sadness that Emma didn't want to tolerate. She turned away and slammed the door, but it didn't slam. Ruby's boot was in the way.

"It's not me." She said softly.

Emma turned to her, "What?" her voice was so hoarse from not using it in so long

Ruby shook her head, "I'm not the one she should be with. If she was with you… she wouldn't be this sad. She's one step above you when no one is looking. She's taken the last month off for vacation. She… It's not me. She was my true love. And I think you didn't come around until after I died so that I could have that true love 'til death do us part. But the thing is… death did part us. And she found you. And I think you're her real true love. I think she loved me and it was true, but I think since we were so young—gods we were so young… I think you're it." She stepped aside in the door frame, "Will you… will you please come with me, let me take you to her?"

The blonde looked down at her week old attire and ratty hair, "I'm… I don't—"

"She looks the same… Please." Ruby pleaded.

Emma only followed her down to her car, quilt and socks protecting her from the bitter cold. They pulled into Regina's driveway then Ruby opened the garage to let her inside.

"She's in the bedroom." She said and nodded her head for Emma to follow her. She placed a finger to her lips when they got to the door, "Regina? Regina? Come on… Will you look at me?"

Regina rolled over and looked at the floating head in the crack of her door. Ruby gave her a serious look, "I have something I need to tell you."

"What?" The word sounded as though a toddler spoke it.

"I don't think I'm your true love."

"So you're breaking up with me because I'm going through a little pain?"

"No, I'm breaking up with you because you don't love me as much as you thought you did, but you do love Emma as much as you think you do. I'm not it for you. She is. And, Regina, darling, I'm okay with that…" She said seriously, "I brought you something." She stepped into the hallway and pushed the something in the doorway.

Regina was greeted with blonde curls, red eyes, and a sniffly nose wrapped in an old quilt. And it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. "Emma?" She de-cocooned herself from her quilts and crawled to the edge of the bed in the time it took Emma to bounce in her quilt cocoon over to her.

"Hi." Emma's voice was small and raw.

"Hi." Regina traced the blonde's face with her fingertips.

"I missed you lots."

"I missed you lots, too." Regina smiled.

"I've been crying for three months straight."

"I have, too."

"I love you."

Regina nodded with tears in her eyes, "I love you, too."

Emma turned to Ruby, "Can you tell my parents that I'm here so they don't freak out?"

"I will." She looked between the two pathetic looking women, "Are you going to be able to fend for yourselves?"

"Yes." They both said as they looked at each other.

Regina then looked to Ruby, "Thank you." She whispered.

Ruby nodded and walked out the door.

Emma wiped the tears from Regina's eyes, "I vote no more crying."

"I second it."

"I vote that I get in bed and we sleep…"

"I second it."

"I've been too busy crying to get sleep."

"As have I." Regina helped Emma on the bed and delighted in the half of quilt that covered her when she did. It smelled of the blonde; it smelled of everything she'd missed.

"I vote that we never break up again."

"I second it."

"I vote that you marry me and we live happily ever after." Emma smiled as sleep began to claim her. She stayed awake long enough to hear Regina's answer.

"I second it."


End file.
